Page 63 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

He’d sit at the kitchen counter for hours, listening to her talk and think out loud, sampling her delicious products as often as necessary until he felt sick from all the sugar, and she’d finally collapse on the counter and say her brain bank was empty.

At night, they’d retreat to their separate beds, Lizzie’s air mattress pushed against the wall near his normal bed frame. He felt like shit having her sleep on an air mattress, but no amount of pressing would make her budge on it.

And through all of it, Rake had the indecent urge to touch her. Hold her. Brush off the constant smears of flour on her nose. Breathe in the scent of her delicate sweetness edged with something tart and delicious until he was delirious from it.

Lizzie’s energy tugged at him like the moon pulls the tide, and there were countless moments when he wanted to give in to the current.

And he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what the bloody hell was wrong with him.

He wasn’t this poetic,feelings-type person.

And he certainly wasn’t about to give in to such a foolish impulse and screw up their agreed-upon plan.

No. He’d ball his fists at his sides every time she walked past. He’d keep his head down and eyes slammed shut when she pranced out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. And, he’d (eventually) figure out how to shut off the lobe of his brain that generated constant daydreams of Lizzie Marie Blake.

Besides his dizzyingly intrusive thoughts, everything was fine. Incredibly fine.

One night a couple weeks into their cohabitation, Rake woke up needing to pee. He blinked at the ceiling for a momentbefore letting out a gruff yawn, then rolled out of bed, stumbling through the dark toward the bathroom.

But, in a moment that caused his life to pass before his eyes, his toe caught on something at the corner of his mattress.

And he went down.

Hard.

Whatever he’d tripped over was tall and rubbery and collapsed beneath him.

His sleep-logged limbs didn’t balance him, and his mind moved in slow motion as he fell, registering that it was Lizzie’s air mattress by the time he was halfway down on it.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, his knees smacking the floor beneath.

Lizzie screamed as she woke, her body jerking up from the collapse of the air mattress, and her knees hitting him squarely in the chest.

“What the hell?” Lizzie said with a hoarse yell, continuing to kick and twist. Rake groaned again, the wind knocked from his lungs.

He rolled to his back, groping around for one of her legs so she’d stop kicking the life out of him. “Lizzie,” he wheezed, “it’s me.”

Lizzie stilled for a moment, the hiss of her rapidly deflating mattress the only sound in the room. “What are you doing on my air mattress?”

“I had to pee,” he said, sucking in a breath.

“You what?”

“Pee! I had to pee!”

“Why were you trying to pee on my air mattress?”

“I wasn’t! I tripped over this ridiculous thing,” he said, slapping the thick rubber.

“I think you popped it,” Lizzie said after a moment.

“You think?” Rake said, the whistle of escaping air emphasizing his sarcasm.

Both their bodies rested on the floor at this point, tangled in the sheets and plastic, and their breaths came in heavy pants from the commotion.

And then Lizzie started giggling.

It was quiet at first, almost imperceptible. But the sound grew to wheezes and snorts, her whole body shaking with laughter.